Outside Look
by dzio
Summary: A dead girl. A security tape that makes no sense. A Muggle detective looking for answers. First in the series of four one-shots. R&R.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: **This is the first chapter of a four-part story about a muggle Detective who got himself into a bit more trouble than he can handle. I was originally planning on writing this as a series of four independent one-shots, but it didn't quite work like that, so I tried something different.

Chapter One is a prologue of sorts and takes place at the end of the first rise of Voldemort. The rest of the story is set in the 90s and will include more canon characters. This is a bit of an experiment, my first attempt at writing a HP story using a complete stranger's POV. Let me know what you think of that. :)

The lyrics are from "Cornflake Girl" by Tori Amos.

**ooooooooooooo**

"_This is not really happening..._

_You bet your life it is."_

**ooooooooooooo**

Had the cameras on the corner of Oak and Haycroft been capable of recording sound, at 2 AM one windy Sunday in the autumn of 1980 they would have recorded one piercing scream, cut short. It's possible they would have caught a few quiet words that vaguely resembled Latin. If the microphones had been sensitive enough, they might have stood a chance of preserving the sound of uneven, gasping breaths and a hearty chuckle when the breathing stopped.

The cameras, however, recorded images only, though in great detail. Should anyone ask him, Detective Inspector Colin Hammond would say that the lack of sound made the experience of watching the film hard to bear.

The monitor in front of him displayed a young girl with greasy, blonde hair covering her face. She was dressed in worn and dirty clothes and her patched backpack lay on the ground beside her. She stood in the entrance of a narrow alley, her back to the brick wall. She said something, but dim light flickering over her features were not enough for Colin to guess what it was. She began to shake and her shoulders pressed against the wall as if she wanted to escape by walking through it.

One of the men before her stepped back and turned to the left, facing the camera. He wore a black hooded cloak, so long that it brushed the littered pavement when he moved. Blue neon light shone over his face, hidden by the white mask, transforming him into a bizarre statue. His two companions (both bulky and tall) nodded, so he must have said something, even if the mask made it impossible to see. The girl's eyes widened and she tried to push between the wall and one of her attackers, but he managed to grab her arm and pull her back to him. Hammond noticed that he was wearing the same kind of costume – white mask and a rich black cloak.

The girl's lips moved again and this time Colin could easily read her words. "Please," she said. "Please," over and over again. Finally the first man raised his hand, holding something long and slim pointed at the girl's chest. It looked like a conductor's baton, thought Colin, even if it didn't make any sense. Then the man made a rapid gesture with his...whatever it was…and the girl fell to the ground, writhing and thrashing in obvious pain. Her eyes were clenched shut, hands balled into white-knuckled fists, muscles on her neck strained, and her mouth opened in silent screams.

After a while the hooded man made another gesture and the convulsions stopped. Small tremors ran through the girl's curled up body. The leader turned to the other two and they both reached for their own strange weapons. Three slender pieces of wood pointed at the victim and three jets of light flashed towards her. She screamed and clutched her stomach with unsteady hands. For a moment she suddenly straightened and lay completely still, as if turned to stone. Two more swishes and two bloody cuts appeared on her face. More strange gestures followed, some accompanied by flashes of bright light, every last one making the victim soundlessly scream her lungs out and curl in terrible pain.

Detective Colin Hammond stopped the tape and stared at the hand of the attacker, clearly visible where he was standing now. He leaned forward and tried to figure out what was the thing this bastard was holding.

"Liam," he called over his shoulder, "look at this, will you?"

A young man with short sandy hair got up from his desk and looked over Hammond's shoulder.

"That's the dead girl from Oak and Haycroft!" he exclaimed.

"Yeah, only she's not quite dead yet at this point. Tapes came this morning," Hammond said in a tired voice.

"But that's great, right?" asked Liam. "I mean, you've got the whole thing on video. You can figure out..."

"That's the problem, kid," interrupted Hammond. "I can't figure out one bloody thing from it. That's why you see me going through this, instead of the Supreme Arse-licker around here this week."

Hammond sighed in frustration. It was his case. He was the one who connected three dead bodies with the same, unexplainable injuries. And still it was Riley's Golden Boys who were given useful leads to follow while he was stuck with the blasted tape that didn't make any sense. He would have long ago thrown the thing away and considered it an extremely bad joke if the injuries the girl on the video suffered didn't exactly match the ones on an unidentified body in the morgue.

"Play the whole thing then," said Liam. Colin pressed the play button and closed his eyes, willing the growing headache away. He leaned back and waited for the soft click that marked the end of the recording.

"Bloody hell." Liam looked at the last frame of the tape, showing the lifeless body crumpled on the ground in an empty alley.

"My point exactly," said Hammond. Both men stayed silent for a long moment.

"Okay, okay. Listen, we've got two options here," said Liam, finally, dragging his chair to Hammond's desk and sitting down. "Either this thing is real or it's not, right?"

The other detective just nodded. When his colleague went into "hyper mode," as his friends called it, it was better to let him run with it.

"Right. Let's assume it's fake. Somebody did a damn good job on special effects and somehow replaced the real tape with this one. We've got a very real body in the freezer, so it's not just a stupid prank; it's an actual murder. Whoever made the tape knew about the murder – all the details match, down to the last cut on the girl's cheek. He either witnessed the whole thing...made a record, probably. It would have been impossible to _remember_ enough details to pull it off. Or, more likely – he was an active participant. Either way, the only reason to alter the tape would be to protect the identities of the killers and maybe frame somebody innocent in the process. Whoever did it had access to the server rooms, anyway, and could have simply _deleted_ all the copies, destroy the evidence, and save himself _a lot _of trouble. And if they wanted to send us on a wild goose chase, wouldn't they come up with something that actually _looks _real to make the records appear genuine?"

Liam stopped staring at the wall above Hammond's head and looked at the man instead.

"I mean, as a cover story it's bloody ridiculous!" he exclaimed, gesturing wildly. "Somebody killed the girl, and then made a tape showing some freaks killing her with their magical laser-sticks or whatever the damned things were. Then he broke inside the security agency's server rooms, put his tape there, and went home to sleep and dream sweet, homicidal dreams? Bollocks. And even if our killer is a nutter who would consider this kind of plan a real option, there's _no way_ he could manage to keep the fake and real girl's injuries perfectly matching! Not even George bloody Lucas could do that, mate!"

"I thought as much. There's no way it's all fake. I think the killer, or killers, altered the part showing _how_ they inflicted those injuries."

"Yeah, but why?" asked Liam. "We can't identify them as it is. Why go to so much trouble? Besides, look at that thing. It doesn't look altered at all! If it is, whoever pulled it off should be thanking the bloody Academy right now!"

"You know, that's exactly what Miranda and her geeks said when they checked it out," laughed Hammond. "She even said something about hiring the guy, because she has no idea how it was done. And there's one more problem. It's not just one server room. The company keeps several copies and none of their employees know about all of them. Security reasons, they said. And every single copy of this tape shows exactly the same thing."

Liam smiled. "Okay, so what does the logic tell us? One: every expert says it wasn't altered at all. Two:it's impossible to make a fake that close to reality, especially on such short notice; it wasn't even two days! Three: as a cover it's downright ludicrous. Four: whoever switched the tapes knew about _all _copies, which is impossible unless it was Director Rivers himself, and since I've met pickled fish smarter than the man I can't really believe _that_. So?"

"The logical thing to assume would be…it's not a fake."

"Exactly!"

"And you don't have a problem with that meaning that three masked men tortured and killed a girl by _pointing sticks_ at her?" asked Hammond. "Because I do. If I put that in my report, they will send me on enforced early retirement so quickly I won't even know what hit me."

"Okay, then maybe we just don't understand what we're seeing here," said Liam in a patient voice.

"What part don't you understand?" Hammond was growing more and more irritated. He had fifteen years more experience than this kid and here he was trying to teach him how the job should be done? "You think I didn't consider it? How else could I interpret _this_?" he pointed at the screen, still showing a small, unmoving body. "They point those sticks at her. They don't touch her with them — just point. They don't pull any kind of a trigger on the stick — only wave it. And then she's bleeding. Her skin is burned, covered in boils. Her fingers snap. Her eyes..." He was shaking. Liam stared at him, grey eyes wide with shock. Hammond was known for remaining cool and composed in the worst circumstances. There were stories circulating among all the old timers in the Department. The man was a legend! Apparently Riley, their new boss, and his desire to make Hammond's life hell were really getting under his skin.

Hammond took a slow, deep breath and held it in for a while, eyes closed. When he exhaled and looked back at his colleague, his hands and voice were steady.

"Or maybe you forgot the moment when those guys waved their magical sticks and _disappeared_? Puff, and they're gone?"

"Well..."

"Oh, and one more thing for you to consider. I don't know if you noticed, but the poor lass was screaming her head off all the time. And this isn't exactly the middle of nowhere; this is residential area. There's absolutely no way nobody heard it, it lasted too long. Somebody should have called in a disturbance at the very least."

Liam seemed to be thinking about it for a while. Finally he looked at Colin and spoke, measuring his words carefully.

"So there's only one explanation for it." Hammond raised his eyebrow. "It's real. All of it, all the bloody way." he spread his hands helplessly. "It's the only theory that doesn't have holes the size of London in it. But I can't think of anything we can do about it..."

"You mean – no holes except the wee little problem that our suspects are armed with magical sticks and apparently can teleport? And it's just me, Liam. They've got you working on something that actually has some use. I'm the only one chasing fairy tales here," he leaned back and stared at the cracks in a ceiling.

"What are you going to do then?"

He shrugged. "I'll give it to the techies, tell them it can't be real so they may just as well give it a try because I don't know shite about it. They won't have the foggiest what's wrong with the thing and it will freak them out like you wouldn't believe. Miranda and her boys _hate it _when some of this computer voodoo doesn't work like it should. And then it's going to be buried in archives and deliberately forgotten forever. But thanks anyway, kid," Hammond felt obliged to say. The boy tried to help after all.

Liam's shoulders slumped and the small smile that always lingered at the corner of his mouth vanished.

"Let's hope Norton's team finds something then," he finally said, without much enthusiasm. He rolled his chair back to the other side of the room and started shuffling through some papers half-heartedly.

"Yeah, let's," Hammond looked at the screen. He pressed the button on the left and images rushed backwards. He froze it again two minutes before the moment when three men disappeared. The one he assumed to be a leader removed his mask and threw back the hood. In sharp blue light Colin could see every detail of his face. Young, pointed chin, high cheekbones, bright, narrowed eyes, long hair, so fair it looked silver. And the chilling look of mixed disgust, pleasure, cruelty and something darker still, clear on his coldly perfect face.

He searched every database available to him and then some that he theoretically didn't have access to, but couldn't find a trace of this man. He was told to give it up – the best anyone could do was to add the bastard's picture to the books and hope he turns up sooner or later.

Helpless fury burned in him. It was just like Riley. The case wasn't front page news, so he gave it as little attention as he could. Three homeless kids, two of them punk junkies, didn't deserve any real resources. A perfect job for the greying detective who didn't give rat's arse about making an appearance in evening news and insisted that quiet, boring, everyday things were the most important part of the job. He's been a right pain, and that's why the whole investigation would go down before Hammond had a chance to solve it.

He stared at the pale face for a long minute, carving every detail into his memory. He followed the murderer's features with obsessive intensity, making sure he would be able to remember it as clearly as the face he saw every day in the mirror. He owed those kids at least that much.

Finally he pushed the play button again and felt something freeze inside him when a slow, satisfied and completely insane smile crept upon the man's thin lips. The others stepped aside and their leader, still smiling that sickening smile, pointed the stick at the bloodied and bruised girl and spoke two words. A jet of brilliant green light flew straight at her chest and then she lay still, dead and silent.

Hammond rewound the tape back and again many times before he was sure he read the man's lips correctly.

He looked one last time at the evil smiling at him from the screen and turned off the computer. He put the tape inside an envelope addressed to Miranda Dunn and placed it in the out box, then put on his jacket and walked out of his office.

"_Avada Kedavra_," he whispered to himself, closing the door.

**ooooooooooooo**

Jeremy Baddock shook his head and tried to force himself to stay awake for at least few more minutes. His desk was buried under stacks of both handwritten yellowish parchments and Muggle printouts. With new attacks several times every week, the Obliviators had a hard time smoothing up every single incident. The fact that more and more of them happened in broad daylight or in Muggle areas didn't help one bit. Last week half of the Department spent four sleepless nights searching for all witnesses of a Death Eater attack in the middle of a shopping mall. All _three hundred and seventy one _witnesses. Thank Merlin for the Pepper-Up Potion.

His mind was drifting again and he mentally shook himself. He scanned the report in front of him. A Muggle girl, tortured to death for fun. He grimaced in disgust as he read the description of what the Death Eaters did to her. He saw more reports like this – it's been the most common way of initiating new recruits lately, but still he couldn't force himself to stay detached from it. It just felt so _wrong_ that it hurt.

It seemed that the leading Muggle detective, Hammond, felt the same way. In one of his reports he found a furious note demanding more resources and more time, even if the case '_wasn't exactly prime time news'_. Baddock started feeling sorry for the man. He seemed like a good guy, who really wanted to make a difference. And soon was going to have his memories erased, as if nothing ever happened, poor sod. This felt wrong, too.

Inside the folder he found some photos. The way Muggle photographs didn't move always irked him, but those were even worse. Those wouldn't move even if they were as magical as they come, the girl would lie just as still. He froze when he saw next photo. A pale face, silver-blond hair, poisonous smile. _If Muggle photographs were accepted as evidence by the Wizengamot, this piece of paper would be Lucius' Malfoy's one-way ticket to Azkaban_, thought Baddock. He crumpled the picture in his hand. _Wrong, all wrong._

He turned the page and looked at the words written over Hammond's spidery notes. '_Insufficient basis for further investigation.' _There was an official-looking stamp at the bottom, saying '_Case closed' _in angry red letters_._

_Well, _he thought, _if they dropped it, there's no reason to mess with poor man's head... _He closed the file and reached for the next thick folder.

**ooooooooooooo**

tbc.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: **I know it took me a long, long time to get back to this story, but better late than never, eh? And let me tell you, I've learned more about British police than I've ever wanted to know. Do you have any idea how hard it is to write a proper confrontation between an insane criminal and the cops, when the cops in question are **not armed**?

**ooooooooooooo**

"What's taking so long? I thought the whole point of spending a zillion pounds on those sodding toys was to get the results faster."

The tech looked as if Hammond offended his family, down to the fifth generation.

"That," ha said pointing at the blinking and blipping monstrosity on the table, "is not a _toy_. It's a GC-MS. A Gas Chromatograph - Mass Spectrometer." From the wounded reverence in his voice one might think he was presenting the Holy Grail.

Hammond shrugged. "And what does it do, exactly?" he asked, not really interested in an answer. He wanted the man to stop trying to look busy and important, while all he did was hover over the thing and wait. The soft looks he kept throwing the machine were creeping Hammond out.

"It identifies different substances using gas chromatography and mass spectrometry."

"Scientists..."

The tech turned around so fast, Hammond heard something click in his neck. "And what's that supposed to mean?" he snapped. It seemed that Hammond's lack of appreciation for his job was getting on his nerves. It would probably be a good idea to shrug and say nothing (at least if Hammond wanted to get the result any time this month), but yanking the man's chain sounded like more fun.

"You people have no imagination whatsoever."

The technician blinked. That clearly was not the answer he was expecting. "You think that scientists have no imagination?"

"Of course."

"You do realize that imagination is exactly what makes scientific discoveries possible?"

"Bollocks. All you need is knowledge, ability to connect facts, high resistance to boredom, lack of social life and a lot of luck."

"But if you can't _imagine_..."

"You don't need to imagine it, you need to _find _it. There's a difference."

The man was slowly turning purple and Hammond could see his knuckles turning white. Now, some messing with his mind was fine, but starting fights with gangly geeks in a lab full of strange equipment was not. For all Hammond knew, those things might explode if someone touched them at the wrong moment. He always did his best to avoid being anywhere near exploding things, and besides, he didn't have a zillion pounds to pay for the damage.

"Look, all I mean is that you people don't have a clue when it comes to naming things," he spread his hands, trying to calm the man. "I mean, Gas Spectrometer? It's not a name, it's a description of what the little bugger does."

The tech's fists unclenched. "And what would you name it? Any ideas?"

Hammond shrugged. "Hey, I never said I knew a better one. I'm just saying that yours sucks."

The technician huffed and turned his attention back to his beloved machine. The silence settled over the lab, and after few minutes Hammond felt the boredom creep back on him.

"Do you know what the world's largest radio astronomy observatory is called?" ha asked. The man glared at him. "Hey, I'm just making a conversation!" The second glare told him just how much the tech appreciated the subject.

"So? Do you?"

"No." The word was practically spat.

"Very Large Array," said Hammond with a satisfied smile. The man blinked. "See what I mean? If the scientists were naming everything, Mount Everest would be A Giant Pile Of Rocks and my name would be The Maths Teacher's Oldest Son."

The machine bipped and the printer spat out a sheet of paper. It was probably a good thing, as the poor tech was ready to have an aneurysm at that point. He snatched the paper and practically threw it at Hammond.

"More like The Bloody Annoying Wanker," he spat and quickly disappeared somewhere in the back of the lab.

**ooooo**

"What have you got there, Merlin?"

Hammond looked up from the lab results sheet. "If you keep calling me that, I will stop harassing the boys when they call _you _King Arthur."

Liam's smile disappeared. "They call me what?"

"You heard me."

"But... why?"

"Well, you're Merlin's favourite pupil, aren't you?"

Liam plopped down into a plastic chair in front of Hammond's desk. "Oh," he said. "Makes sense, I guess."

Hammond smiled and went back to work. Not for long.

"So, want to tell me what made you so cheerful today?"

Hammond closed the file and stretched in his chair. "I just closed my last case. The lab results came back, we have the fingerprints, the blood-work from the murder weapon and the fibres – all match my suspect, who's already in custody. Solved. I'm officially out of here in five days, and those will be spend on finishing up the paperwork, drinking coffee and reading books in the quiet and peace of my office."

Liam grinned at him. "Great job!"

"Why, thank you, my faithful apprentice."

They sat in silence for a while, Hammond searching for some papers in the mess that, as always, covered his desk and every flat surface near it, and Liam watching him with strangely sad smile.

"Aren't you going to miss it?"

Hammond stopped his search and shot his colleague a look over his reading glasses. "Miss what, exactly?"

Liam made a wide gesture with his right hand. "This. The job, working the cases, finding clues, catching bad guys."

Hammond thought about it a lot lately. Would he miss it? Being a detective was pretty much all his life. He never married, he didn't have any close friends besides Liam, he didn't have a real hobby... He had his puzzles. What would he do now? He didn't know, but as long as it involved a lot of sleep and time to read, he was fine.

He told Liam as much and the younger man laughed. "I guess it's hard to imagine – you not being here, but sitting in a rocking chair, sipping whiskey and reading Arthur Conan-Doyle novels."

Hammond raised an eyebrow at the mention of a rocking chair. Liam noticed and his grin became mischievous. "Getting all grandfatherly and boring. Spoiling your nieces silly. Loosing the rest of your grey hair."

"Hey, watch it, kid."

From the other side of the room the young, harried looking cop shot him a strange look. To someone straight from the Academy, Detective Inspector Liam Cleary, forty two years old and sporting more than few grey hairs himself, certainly didn't look like _kid_. To Colin Hammond he was still the awe-struck, wet behind the ears recruit that called him 'Sir' and jumped every time he raised his voice.

Hammond caught himself staring into distance, smiling at nothing and he shook himself. "Stop making me look like a sentimental idiot, you little wanker and let me finish my job," he snapped at his friend. The young cop jumped, but Liam only smiled.

"Catch me on your way out, will you?" he asked getting up. "I think we should go for a pint or two and celebrate."

"I don't know. I have a rocking chair to sit in, back at home. Nieces to spoil..."

"At ten PM? They are six, remember?"

"Good point. But the rocking chair is still there, and Sir Conan-Doyle.."

"I will tell you about the retirement prank the guys from Narco are planning for you?"

Hammond laughed. "In that case I will be there in an hour or so."

"Knew I would convince you with this one. You scared they will get you? Want to cheat your way out of some well earned embarrassment?"

"You kidding me? This is _Narco _we're talking about, there's no telling what they'll put in my coffee. I'm trying to cheat my way out of a heart attack."

They both laughed. The kid two desks away looked a bit green around the edges and was probably reconsidering his career choice.

"And here I thought you'd want to solve one more puzzle and stun them with your brilliance when the plan backfires on them."

Hammond tapped the file in front of him. "My puzzle-solving days are over. I'm planning on limiting myself to Sunday paper crosswords from now on."

The sad smile was back. "This just doesn't sound right."

"Oh, shut up. And the part of my brilliance that will stun our merry pranksters is the knowledge when to play dirty. Hence the cheating. Sod off already, or we won't make it to the pub before the last call."

Liam got up and raised his hand in a mock salute. "Sodding off right away, sir."

Hammond shook his head in amusement and went back to his very last piece of police work.

**ooooo**

As anyone who really knew Hammond expected, the prank backfired spectacularly. It took some setting up, but Hammond managed to distract the Narco detectives with a skilfully planted rumour about an upcoming Internal Affairs bullshit investigation into their department, and used their inattentiveness to switch the coffee pot from their break-room with the one they set up for him. Their expressions when they realized they weren't in danger of losing their jobs were priceless. Almost as good as what happened when the stuff in their coffee kicked in.

The entire third floor was in a jolly good mood after that. Later, when Hammond walked to his Captain's office and handed him the finished case file, he thought his last day as a real detective was damn near perfect.

He went home and settled down for a well deserved quiet evening with a glass of whiskey, a good book and the heavenly voice of Ella Fitzgerald. For a few hours everything was well with the world and the soon to be retired Detective Colin Hammond allowed himself to believe it was going to stay that way.

Big mistake.

**ooooo**

It took him almost a full minute to wake up enough to identify the source of insistent ringing next to his ear as his phone and another thirty seconds to figure out how to shut the blasted thing up. Reaching for the phone he glanced at his radio alarm clock. It was a birthday gift from his sister, a hellish invention that forgot the station it was tuned into the very instant he set it, which resulted in him being woken up by a truly bizarre selection of music, ranging from slightly hysterical gospel to something apparently called "grind-core". Hammond called it a sure sign of the world going batshit crazy. At that moment, however, the alarm was mercifully silent.

What caught his attention was the fact that, according to the blinking red display, it was almost three in the morning. In his experience a phone call at this time of night meant either something work-related, or a really, really bad family news. And since he was about to retire...

"Hammond," he barked into the receiver, suddenly wide awake.

"Merlin, listen, sorry for waking you up, old boy, but you really have to..."

The icy dread filling his gut was replaced by a rushing wave of relief. "Liam, you halfwit twat, what the hell is wrong with you?!" he yelled. "You just had me imagining my sister's car wrapped around a tree, did you know that, you piss-poor excuse for a friend?!"

There was a moment of stunned silence on the other end of the line. "Um..." said Liam.

"Yeah, that's what I thought."

"Sorry, I... I didn't..."

"No, you didn't, that's pretty obvious!"

It felt really good to vent and erase that unending minute of panic from his mind, and Hammond probably would have continued his ranting if Liam hadn't interrupted him.

"He's back, Colin," said Liam, his grave voice stopping Hammond mid-sentence, the cold fist squeezing his heart once more.

He didn't ask who "he" was, he didn't have to. In their line of work everyone had their ghosts, their personal nightmares, memories that drew them back to old, dusty files, blurry photographs, yellowed forms filled in slowly fading ink. Faces they could recall more clearly than their own – some long dead, some merely frozen in time, while real people who wore them grew older and changed, somewhere.

Twenty minutes later Hammond was standing at Liam's desk and, with a suffocating feeling of de ja vu, watching three masked men torture a homeless drunk to death.

"...Notting Hill, last night. You were already home when the tapes came, and I wouldn't even make a connection, but John made a joke about..." Liam was trying to explain something to him, but Hammond couldn't hear him.

A gloved hand rose slowly, holding a slender piece of wood...

"...examined the recording, it's the same thing, I'm telling you, they have no idea how..."

Hammond wore glasses now. Sixteen years ago he hadn't needed glasses. And the quality of the video was much better. The homeless man coughed and Hammond could see every little drop of red that fell on the piece of dirty-grey cardboard under his feet. Every drop.

"...the body..."

And the thugs seemed younger this time. They were both shorter than the leader and their movements were nervous, less certain, lacking that deathly grace... Kids. Just kids.

Hammond realised that Liam had stopped talking and glanced at his friend. He looked worried, and anxious.

"Now," he said, hitting "pause". "You have to see this."

The victim was barely breathing, and all three of his assailants appeared to be laughing at his weak attempts to shield himself from the next attack. The leader took of his mask and shook his head, letting the hood of his cloak slid back.

He was older, too. His gestures more precise, performed with visible ease, without a slightest hint of hesitation. Angular lines of his face more prominent. He was more mature now, learned to control his impulses, to plan, to wait. Learned that the rewards of patience were much sweeter than anything a moment of blind fury had to offer. Infinitely more dangerous.

He spoke and Hammond's lips moved too, repeating the two words he had hoped never to hear or see spoken again.

His personal nightmare looked straight at the camera and smiled.

**ooooo**

He didn't go back home that night. Instead, ignoring the worry on Liam's face, he watched the video over and over. Liam asked if he wanted him to pull the old tape from the records, but Hammond just reached into the lowest drawer of his desk, the one that got stuck all the time, so he almost never used it, and put a slightly dusty plastic box on his desk.

"I have my own copy, thanks," he said, and Liam returned to watching him without a word.

He spent almost six hours comparing the details. He couldn't be sure, but he thought he had recognized several patterns, specific movements, colours, connected to specific things happening to both victims. A slashing move and brilliant flash of red. Intricate weave of spiralling gestures and a shade of blue so dark that it was almost black.

The smell of fresh coffee broke his concentration. "You need a break, Merlin," said Liam, handing him a steaming mug. Hammond looked up and the morning light streaming through the windows startled him.

"Crap, I didn't realize it was morning already."

"It's almost noon," said Liam.

Hammond rubbed the bridge of his nose and closed his stinging eyes for a second.

"Got anything new?"

He let out a heavy sigh. "Nothing. Not a single, bloody thing."

He looked at his younger colleague and sighed again. "Out with it," he said.

Liam's eyes turned wide. "O... out with... what?" he stuttered.

Hammond could only smile. "Come on, Junior. By the way you've been fidgeting I'd say that either you want to tell me something, but are afraid that I'll bite your head off if you do, or you're sitting on an anthill."

They both chuckled, but Liam's expression quickly turned serious. "You don't have to do this," he said and, seeing Colin's reaction, rose his hand to interrupt anything he might want to say. "Wait, let me finish. I know how you feel about this, I was here the last time around, remember? It's just... Hell, Merlin, I remember what that case did to you, and I don't want to watch you go through this again. You're four days away from retirement, you don't need this..."

"You think this is about what I need?" growled Hammond, and immediately regretted it. This was not Liam's fault, he was trying to do the right thing, and venting his frustration on his pupil turned best friend would not help matters any. "Sorry, kid, didn't mean to snap like that," he muttered. Liam smiled and shrugged. He knew Hammond's mean moods all too well. "This is not about what I need, it's about those people, slaughtered like animals by some psychopath. About finding some way to get the bastards before any more bodies with burns, cuts, bruises and boils all over them turn up. About this whole thing finally making some sense, because this is driving me barking mad, and..."

He stopped and took a deep breath. "Hell, maybe it is about what I need," he muttered. "I need to catch that son of a bitch, Liam. I _have to _get him," he said, looking Liam straight in the eye.

"I know," he said and stood up. "Come on, we should get going."

"Go where?" asked Hammond.

Liam looked at the computer screen, showing a freeze-frame of a dark corner at the back of a small book store, only one figure left, curled up on wet concrete, unmoving. He nodded.

"There."

**ooooo**

They didn't talk much on the way to the scene. Liam was concentrated on dodging insane taxi-drivers and Colin was too tired to start a conversation. Anyway, the only thing on his mind right now was the tape, the blonde man, the dead body. No room for small talk.

It took them almost half an hour to get there, and by that time Colin's coffee kicked in, leaving him tense and unable to sit still. As soon as the car was parked, he opened the door – almost hitting some old lady with it – and almost ran towards the alley.

Of course, there wasn't all that much to look at. The only difference between the images he remembered from the tape and what he was seeing now, was daylight and two pieces of police tape hanging limply from the fence on his left. Not a single hint that anything remotely unusual ever happened there.

"_Avada Kedavra_," he whispered, staring at the place where the body used to lay.

Liam caught up to him a minute later. "Weird, isn't it?" he asked.

Hammond looked at him questioningly.

"That you can never tell," explained his friend. "Those places always look so... ordinary. If I told you it was the next alley over you'd believe me, because there's nothing special about this one. No signs, no strange feelings, no aura of evil."

Hammond could only nod.

"You know," continued Liam, "I once knew that girl, and she told me about the day she first fell in love. She told me how she and that kid were sitting on a park bench and he kissed her and how it was a perfect day, in every single way. How she always smiled when she passed that bench after that day. And I had no heart to tell her that six years earlier a mother of three was mugged and stabbed to death two feet from that bench."

"There's no way to know," said Hammond.

The harsh voice behind them startled both. "Actually, there is."

They spun around, Hammond's hand automatically reaching for his radio to call for backup. It only took three seconds, but it felt like three minutes. He registered the owner of the voice, a strangest looking character he had ever seen, with mis-matched eyes and deep scars crossing his face. In the next heartbeat he noticed a slender piece of wood in the stranger's hand, aimed directly at Liam, and his blood froze. Half a second later, as his fingers were searching for the rectangular object in his pocket, he realized he'd be too late.

"_Stupefy_," said the man and a jet of red hit Liam. In a second it took Colin to take the radio out, and Liam to crumble to the ground, the man made another gesture, accompanied by two strange words, and suddenly the solid piece of metal and plastic in his hands turned into a handful of sand, harmlessly trickling between his fingers.

For a moment Colin just stared, his shocked gaze moving from his empty hands to Liam, sprawled on the ground. "What..." he whispered, unable to form a single, coherent sentence. In the back of his head he wondered if the camera over the back door covered the place where he was standing. If it would record his death too. If someone at the station would sit down and compare the scene of his murder to the one of the nameless drifter.

"There is a way to tell," said the strange man suddenly, startling him out of those thoughts. "Ya just have to know wha'ch ya lookin' for."

Hammond pulled himself together and was ready to say something, but at that very moment Liam groaned softly. He dropped to his knees by his friend's side, relief wiping his mind blank. _Alive_, he thought, _you're alive, kid._ _We both are._

_For how long? _Asked that quiet voice at the edge of his thoughts.

"I'm not going to kill ya," said the man, as if he could hear his thoughts. Maybe he could. "I just want to ask ya a question."

"What question?" asked Hammond and the steadiness of his voice surprised him.

The man walked few steps in his direction, limping heavily, with his weapon pointed directly between his eyes. Hammond resisted the urge to flinch back, instead he reached for Liam's hand, preparing to dive in front of him.

The man chuckled. "That won't be necessary."

"Excuse me if I don't feel inclined to trust you," said Hammond in a tight voice. "What question?" he repeated.

Alastor Moody leaned down and his weird, bright blue eye swivelled in an impossible, chaotic dance before centring straight on Colin.

"_Avada Kedavra_," he whispered and Colin half-expected a jet of poison-green to follow the words. "I'd very much like to know where did'ya hear that."

**ooooooooooooo**

tbc.


End file.
